The invention relates to personnel locating systems, travel reservation systems, airport security systems, radio frequency identification devices.
Travel reservation and baggage tracking systems are known in the art. Passengers typically purchase tickets in advance of travel, and are included in a database of a reservation system as having a reservation. On the date of travel, they must check in, or their seat will be given up to other passengers. Because statistics show that there will always be a number of passengers who will not show up on the designated date of travel, carriers typically xe2x80x9coverbookxe2x80x9d by selling a number of seats over the number of seats that are actually available, based on mathematical calculations. If the passenger does not check in, their seat may be used to accommodate overbooking, or may be given to standby passengers. The following U.S. patents relate to reservation systems and are incorporated herein by reference: 5,401,944; 5,151,692; 5,051,565; 5,010,240; 4,984,156; 4,931,932; 4,449,186; 4,247,795; 3,750,103.
When a passenger enters a travel depot (e.g., an airport), they must therefore check in to make sure the carrier (e.g., airline) knows they are present and to make sure that their seat is not given away to someone else. This typically involves standing in line and waiting for an employee to verify that the correct traveler is bearing a ticket. The employee receives the ticket and, using a reservation system, issues a boarding pass, with a seat assignment, indicating to the system that the seat is no longer available to be given away.
Traditionally, check in occurred simultaneously with a baggage check-in, with an employee marking the traveler""s luggage with a tag indicting the destination where the bag is to be sent, printing a baggage receipt for the customer, and logging the bag in the reservation and baggage handling system.
Business travelers, however, typically do not have any bags to check and prefer not to wait in line. Also, many airports offer curbside check-in, which allows a passenger to check in bags at the curb before entering the airport, where lines are shorter because a gratuity is expected. The business travelers and travelers who have used the curbside check in typically go directly to the podium adjacent the departure gate and check in there. While the line at the podium may be shorter, it is still a line. Travelers needing to check in baggage must wait in lines.
There are many reasons why it would be useful to determine the presence of an individual in an airport or other travel depot. If a flight is about to leave, airline staff may desire to make an attempt to determine if a checked in passenger is in the airport. It is also frequently desirable to locate airline staff, such as pilots, flight attendants, wheelchair attendants, mechanics etc., or airport staff, such as security, or merchants or other persons who work in airports, for a variety of reasons. This is presently attempted through paging, which is sometimes difficult to hear, and is often annoying or competing with more important messages, such as gate change announcements, or information about which rows are boarding.
It is also useful to determine the location of a passenger in evaluating terrorist threats. A terrorist who has planted a bomb in his or her luggage is likely to leave the premises and not board the flight for which the luggage was checked.
Passengers in airports typically need gate and flight information in a hurry. Such information may be obtained from airline staff, but this typically involves standing in long lines. This information is therefore more typically gathered by reading a monitor which lists flight numbers, destinations, gates, and status. A problem is that in some airports, each airline has their own monitors, so a traveler may have to walk a great distance to try to find a monitor for a particular airline. Monitors also contain vast amounts of information, most of it of no interest to a particular traveler. This makes it difficult to find useful information in a hurry.
Switching antennas connected to an interrogator is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/772,173, filed Dec. 18, 1996, titled xe2x80x9cCommunication System Including Diversity Antenna Queuing,xe2x80x9d and listing Clifton W. Wood, Jr. as inventor. Antenna switching for this application is performed for diversity purposes.
The invention provides a system for locating an individual in a facility. The system comprises a portable wireless transponder device borne by the individual; an interrogator; and a plurality of antennas distributed in the facility. The antennas are selectively separately connected to the interrogator. The interrogator, when connected to any of the antennas has a communications range covering less than the area of the entire facility. The interrogator repeatedly transmits a wireless command to the portable wireless transponder device using alternating antennas. The portable wireless transponder device transmits data identifying the portable wireless transponder device in response to a command if the portable wireless transponder device is within communications range of the antenna sending the command. Thus, the individual is located by determining with which antenna the interrogator was able to establish communications with the portable wireless transponder device.